


Me After You

by literally_no_idea



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Spoilers, Don't copy to another site, F/M, Post-Avengers: Endgame (Movie)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-04
Updated: 2019-05-04
Packaged: 2020-02-23 19:28:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,867
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18708493
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/literally_no_idea/pseuds/literally_no_idea
Summary: Rhodey, post-Endgame.(More details in notes at the beginning to not spoil too much for people that haven't seen Endgame yet.)





	Me After You

**Author's Note:**

> Hi so I wanted to talk about Rhodey's grief after Tony dies in Endgame. This is the result.
> 
> Morgan Stark is also in this story, but again, trying not to spoil for people that haven't seen it yet, so I didn't put her in the character tags.

Losing Tony is like losing a limb, and Rhodey would know; without the leg braces Tony made for him, he wouldn’t be able to use his legs at all, so he knows what it’s like, to lose a part of yourself like that.

 

In the days after Tony dies, Rhodey finds himself doing things that he normally would do together with Tony, and forgetting that Tony’s gone. He’s drinking a cup of coffee in the kitchen at the compound one morning when he hears footsteps behind him, and he turns and holds the cup out instinctively only to come face to face with Clint, not Tony.

 

Clint looks at the cup, frowning, and Rhodey pulls the cup back to his chest.

 

“Sorry,” Rhodey mumbles, “Tony usually drinks-- drank out of my mug in the mornings.”

 

Clint smiles weakly, puts a hand on Rhodey’s shoulder. “I know what you mean. Nat used to steal food off of my plate, and I keep catching myself sliding my plate to the side, like she’s going to appear behind me and take a bite of my sandwich, but it never happens.”

 

Rhodey nods silently, doesn’t know what to say, and Clint just steps past him, grabs a cup of coffee, and leaves.

 

A few days later, everyone’s gathered in the living room to watch a movie, and Rhodey sits down on the couch, grabs a blanket to toss over his legs, and he doesn’t realize until he’s finished adjusting the blanket that he’s left half of it on the seat beside him, because Tony always used to share blankets with him.

 

It’s everything Rhodey can do not to start sobbing right then and there.

 

Wanda makes dinner one night, and a number of their teammates gather to eat together, because Wanda’s a pretty good cook. Rhodey watches her cooking from his seat in the living room, and he’s confused when she starts crying, and he sees Clint go in to talk to her. She holds up some paprika, and Rhodey catches the name “Vision,” as Clint pulls her into a hug.

 

When the food is ready, everyone gathers at the kitchen table, and Rhodey sits down, and it’s not until Sam gives him a weird look that he realizes that he’s unknowingly moved his chair over so it’s pressed up against the side of Sam’s. Rhodey moves his chair away again, mumbling an apology, and eats his food in silence.

 

The food is good, but it tastes bittersweet without Tony’s fork sneaking onto Rhodey’s plate and stealing bits of his pasta, without Tony’s constant rambling about some project or another, talking with his mouth full no matter how many times Rhodey tells him to stop doing that.

 

A mail delivery person arrives with a package for Pepper, and Rhodey takes it and signs for it, turns around to make fun of Tony about the delivery guy who called him “Tony Stank,” but there’s no one there, and it hits Rhodey again like a tidal wave, that he’ll never get to joke about that again with Tony.

 

He’s telling Morgan the story about Ivan Vanko, how he and Tony did such good teamwork taking him down, about all the weird and silly things Tony said during different battles, and he enjoys every laugh of Morgan’s, can’t stop seeing Tony in the way the corners of Morgan’s eyes crinkle when she laughs.

 

He goes to MIT a few months later to talk about some of the new information he’s learned about aerospace engineering, to encourage the students that what they’re learning now, the potential they have, could be the key to advancements for the entire human race, could lead to a better understanding of what’s possible.

 

Rhodey leaves at the end of the speech, has to duck into a bathroom and lock himself in one of the stalls so he can cry, because he knows that Tony was always better at this part, had exactly the kind of charisma that could inspire the most self-doubting kids in the world, and no matter how hard Rhodey tries, he’ll never be able to embody that quite the same way that Tony could.

 

Rhodey comes back to the compound from a meeting at the Air Force base one day, and Sam offers him a piece of sour patch kids candy, and Rhodey starts laughing, laughs so hard he has to sit down because his legs are threatening to give out on him, laughs until he starts crying because he just hears Tony’s voice calling him “sour patch.”

 

And suddenly he can’t breathe, he’s hyperventilating because he just wants Tony back, he misses him  _ so much _ , and Sam sits on the floor with Rhodey, talks to him and tries to comfort him as best he can, but he can’t relate, honestly doesn’t know what Rhodey’s going through, doesn’t know what to say, what could help.

 

Rhodey goes into Tony’s workshop at the house he and Pepper had together, finds some of the schematics Tony was working on, and they’re not anything particularly complicated, Rhodey has an aerospace engineering degree, after all, but Rhodey knows that while he might be able to build Tony’s designs, he can’t breathe life into them like Tony could, can’t make them feel as real and lively and beautiful and unique as Tony could.

 

Dum-E is charging in the corner of the room, and Rhodey walks over to him, taps Dum-E’s side to wake him up. Dum-E stirs, starts beeping at Rhodey and nudges Rhodey’s side with his claw, and Rhodey laughs, hugs the bot.

 

“Hey, bud,” Rhodey says, “it’s good to see you too. FRIDAY, has anyone broken the news to Dum-E yet?”

 

“No, Colonel Rhodes, Dum-E does not know yet,” she tells him, and Rhodey sighs.

 

“Okay. Come here, Dum-E, I need to tell you something.”

 

Rhodey walks over, sits down on the couch Tony has in the workshop for sleeping on when he’s been awake too long and either can’t or won’t go back to bed with Pepper because of nightmares or something else, and he explains.

 

He tells Dum-E what happened, that Tony’s gone, and Dum-E beeps at him sadly, and Rhodey nods, cries again (he’s been crying a lot lately, he’s noticed), and Dum-E rests his claw in Rhodey’s lap comfortingly.

 

“You deserved to know,” he tells the bot, “you’re the only one who’s been around for Tony longer than me, and you deserved to know what happened. You meant so much to him, you know? Sure, he joked about donating you to a community college, but he could never do that, you know that, right?”

 

Dum-E beeps, moves his claw up and down in a nodding motion, and Rhodey pets Dum-E’s claw like he’s a dog. “Yeah. Of course you know. God, I miss him.”

 

Rhodey tries to step into the War Machine armor one day, and as soon as he steps into the armor, he just remembers standing there, watching Tony die, watching the light of the arc reactor fade to black, and he starts hyperventilating, gasps out “eject,” and falls out of the armor as it opens around him, collapses to the floor and throws up, because he can’t do this, he can’t, he can’t imagine wearing the armor without Tony in the Iron Man armor beside him.

 

Rhodey spends months trying to figure out a way to get Tony back. In the first week alone, he pulls a Tony and stays awake for 57 hours straight, trying to figure out a way to get Tony back, but he can’t do it, there’s nothing he can think of, there’s no possible way.

 

He talks to Bruce, Strange, Scott, Peter Parker, Rocket, and FRIDAY, tries to put their heads together to get Tony back, but it’s impossible. There’s no way to get him back. Tony’s gone, and he’s not coming back this time.

 

Rhodey’s seen Tony come back from the dead before; they thought he was dead in Afghanistan, but Rhodey kept searching and eventually found him. Tony almost died from palladium poisoning, but he survived that. Tony almost died in the wormhole, but he survived that.

 

Tony was presumed dead after the attack on the Malibu house, but he survived that. Tony survived the battle with Steve and Bucky, Thanos’ snap, the dehydration, starvation, and oxygen deprivation on the Benetar. Tony survived again and again when all the odds were against him, but he’s not coming back this time. This time, it’s permanent.

 

Rhodey can’t find a way to bring him back, and he hates it, because he knows, he knows, that Tony could have found a way to bring himself back, but he can’t talk to Tony, Tony can’t save himself this time, and Rhodey isn’t good enough, isn’t smart enough to fix this.

 

Two months after Tony’s death, when Rhodey knows for sure know that there’s absolutely nothing he can do to bring Tony back, He goes to the water where they’d set the flowers and Tony’s first reactor out to float, and he talks to Tony.

 

“Hey Tones. It’s been a few months, and I still don’t know how to get you back. And I miss you. My legs getting paralyzed didn’t hurt nearly as bad as this. At least my legs are still here. You’re just gone, and I know I can’t bring you back. And I--” Rhodey stops, gets choked up as tears threaten to spill, and he blinks, tears rolling down his cheeks as he tries to get his voice back.

 

“I love you, Tones. When I met you, your only friend was a robot, and I love Dum-E, I do, but the fact that you tensed the first time I hugged you? That hurt so much. And I just want you to know that I’m proud of you, I know that you did what had to be done, but I wish I could have told you that you didn’t need to die to be a hero. You were always a hero, Tony. You were always enough.”

 

Rhodey’s breath hitches with sobs, but he continues talking between gasping breaths. “Damn it, Tones, you self-sacrificing piece of shit, we miss you. And it’s selfish, god it’s selfish, but fuck the rest of the universe, I just want you back. We all want you back. I can’t do this, Tony. How are we supposed to function without you? How am I supposed to function without you? You were the one thing holding this team together, we need you.”

 

Rhodey sniffs, wipes at his eyes and nose with the back of his hand. “We miss you. But I also know you deserved the chance to rest. You deserved the chance to be at peace. So rest, Tony. You earned it. You were always worthy. You were always enough.”

 

Rhodey sits at the side of the water for a while, listening to the water lap at the ground, the chirp of the birds, and the chitter of small animals. He sits there for a long time before he goes home, and he leaves a small stuffed animal on the shore, a gold colored platypus with “honeybear” stitched onto the side in red lettering.

**Author's Note:**

> You can yell at me on my tumblr [ @mbarku](https://mbarku.tumblr.com/)
> 
> Thanks for reading!!


End file.
